Eugene Everett

Nature and landscape are compelling themes for photography, and they have been among my passions since childhood. By the time I was eight years old I had my own camera to document travels with my grandparents through Kansas and the Rocky Mountains. When my family moved to Paris in the 1950s I borrowed my father’s Leica to capture images of the French countryside. In high school I had my own press camera and entered the world of newspaper journalism with photographs of sporting events and other school subjects.

As an adult journalist, I worked mostly as a writer and editor but always kept photography as a significant avocation. Though my journalistic images were published occasionally, most of my photography then involved family pursuits.

In the 1990s I resumed a serious interest in nature and landscape work, traveling often to the Eastern Sierra and Owens Valley. The emptiness of those lands was alluring, and their simple beauty was often ignored by those who passed through too quickly. In those photographs I sought to add context to the lone trees and old irrigation byways. I wanted the images to have a surrealistic edge, an emotional tug. Later, I carried this approach to other areas in California, then to Hawaii, New York, Kansas and other locales.

Today, though techniques and equipment have evolved, I continue to strive for a visceral dimension in every image, to convey the energy or serenity—or whatever—that lies beneath the visual. I seek the charm and depth often overlooked in our surroundings, be they majestic vistas or roadside flora.

Although I am now scanning and digitizing earlier film images, all of my current work is produced digitally using Canon professional cameras and lenses.

Canon 5D Mk II, Canon 20D, Canon A2; Canon lenses: 24-70 2.8; 70-200 2.8; 17-40 4.0; 50 1.4; teleconverters, wide angles, filters, lights, etc.

Landscapes and people